Having just got my first BlackBerry (I know, I know), I’m swiftly discovering just how addictive its dedicated Facebook application is. Forget push-email, it’s pokes and status updates that have got me firing the little fella up throughout the day.
Anyway, Palm is hoping that people with its Centro and Treo handsets will be able to get in on the action now, with the release of Facebook for Palm. It basically does the same stuff as the BlackBerry version, so you can check your inbox, post status updates and see what your friends have been up to, and post photos and videos taken with your phone. Among other things.
It sounds excellent. Whether it’s enough to tempt people away from their BlackBerry devices is another question, of course.
It’s no secret that we have been less than enthusiastic about the Palm Centro since we first heard about it, but despite a slightly underwhelming spec sheet the device seems to be enjoying some pretty stellar sales.
Not only has the device sold more than one million units worldwide, but according to a survey conducted by Palm, 70 percent of Centro customers are first time smartphone users. Looks like brand power goes a long way and though Palm is certainly not at the cutting edge of smartphone technology (having dominated the PDA market for so long) it certainly isn’t having a hard time shifting its flagship device.
We can only hope that this means the company is in rude financial health which will prompt a new and much more inspiring smartphone somewhere down the line.
(Via SlashPhone)
Yeah, its pretty small (107 x 53.5 x 18.5mm), and yeah, the 320 x 320 pixel touch-screen is good for such a pint-sized phone, but aside from that and its EvDO networking (3G in the US), Palm’s latest addition to its US range, the Centro, offers little to get excited about. Such as?
Try a 1.3MP camera, a microSD card slot, Bluetooth 1.3, 64MB of memory… And that’s your lot. The Centro does run Palm OS 5.4.9, which is more appealing than the Windows Mobile that Europe is getting in the Treo 500v. But there’s no sign of even a 3.5mm headphone jack, which is frankly backward.
Check out the Centro on Palm’s US site, and hit the jump for more pics from us.
Continue reading ‘Palm’s new baby, the Centro, unveiled’
Digitimes reports that Taiwan’s Inventec Appliances is Palm’s chosen outsourcing partner for its upcoming (and already vaguely underwhelming) Centro device. A leaked image (shown right) of the upcoming handset popped out last month, drawing gasps of amazement from almost no-one at all.
The site goes on to claim that, ‘Palm has also subcontracted new CDMA2000 smartphones to be launched in 2008 to Chi Mei Communication Systems’, which shouldn’t come as much surprise, since it was fairly likely that Palm was going release something next year… Let’s just hope it’s an interesting something.
